It was never knowingly on display during his spell as England coach, but
clearly Fabio Capello has a sense of humour after all.

Evidence has just emerged that beneath his remarkably dark thatch and permanently beetled brow lurks a twinkle in the eye. How else do we explain his remarks about Wayne Rooney this week?

“Rooney doesn’t speak English,” Capello said after England’s defeat to Italy on Sunday. “He doesn’t understand English. He only plays well in Manchester where Sir Alex Ferguson speaks Scottish.”

It was a nice line, one which has been pored over by those seeking explanation for England’s shortcomings in Euro 2012. And there appears to be some mileage in it: if Rooney had played with half the power and precision he showed for his club during the season then it might be England lining up against the Germans in Warsaw on Thursday evening.

After his wretched showing in South Africa, his anonymity in Ukraine begs the question: why is it that a footballer of such stature domestically seems to shrink in national service? Could it be, as Capello suggested, a matter of preferring his day job? Or rather being more comfortable with the boss there? And if that is the case, how is the new England coach to improve things?

Capello’s intervention, however, should not be regarded as the most objective of analysis. He was not offering his opinion in the continuing service of England’s best interests. Rather he was engaged in a campaign of personal salvage, trying to restore a reputation badly compromised by his time in charge of the three lions, an outfit which, under his tutelage, more frequently resembled a trio of mangy strays.

When Capello was appointed as England manager, his standing in world football was second to none. That was why the Football Association was prepared to fork out the riches of Croesus to secure his signature: they were buying in, they thought, the best. Subsequent disappointments undermined that notion to the point where everyone seemed relieved when he departed and the emollient Roy Hodgson could be installed in his place.

But it was not so much his inability to maintain group morale in South Africa, or mistaken tactics and formation, or even his misplaced loyalty to certain ageing squad members that speared his lofty repute. It was his failure to extract a worthy performance out of the nation’s best player. That is the whole purpose of international management: getting the best to produce the best. And Capello dramatically failed on that account.

Clearly it still hurts. Until the subject of Rooney was raised, the Italian had been dignified in his retreat from England, even generously giving his time to his successor to pass on his experience. But the issue with the star striker is the sore that refuses to heal.

When Sven-Goran Eriksson departed from the England job with the instruction to “look after Rooney” the implication was clear. Without him they are 11 earnest plodders. With him, they are 10 earnest plodders and a man who can make the difference. As indeed, he almost did on Sunday night. If he had connected just a couple of inches lower with that overhead kick in the 93rd minute against Italy, nobody would have been talking to Capello about England’s shortcomings.

Instead, we are mapping well-trodden territory yet again. And the truth is Capello never got the performance out of Rooney at a tournament his talent insists lurks within. Indeed, in South Africa under the Italian, the player was so bad it became a running joke that a doppelganger had infiltrated FA security and that the real Wayne was trussed up in a cupboard somewhere.

Capello knows his failure with Rooney is his most significant in his time in England. Perhaps peeved by the player’s public suggestion that it made a change, under Hodgson, for the players to understand what they were being told, Capello’s response was barbed. It wasn’t his fault, his intervention insists, if Rooney chose not to play as well for his country as he does for his club. It was not a matter of failed communication. It is Rooney’s fault.

Interviewed on TalkSport on Wednesday, Hodgson called Capello’s remarks unhelpful and vindictive. He was right to be so defensive of Rooney, right to be protective of his feelings. Because from now on, the responsibility of extracting a proper performance from his star turn is his.

Like Capello, his spell in charge of England could be defined by how well he succeeds in that task. And in Ukraine it was clear he had learned one thing: Rooney does not like being marooned alone up front. Hodgson played him in his favoured role, behind Danny Welbeck.